photo database of one hundred 20 million people to identify suspects in criminal investigations. we will talk to a national technology reporter. plus e-mails and tweets. live,ington journal," saturday, on c-span. tonight on c-span, president obama nominates james comey as fbi director. later, discussion of nsa data collection programs and technology and privacy laws. today, president obama nominated as the next director of the fbi. he served as deputy attorney general under president bush and would replace fbi director

mueller if confirmed. from the white house, this is just under 10 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states, accompanied by mr. bob mueller and mr. jim comey. >> good afternoon, everybody. please have a seat. for more than a century, we have counted on the dedicated men and women of the fbi to keep us safe. in that time, the fbi has been led by six directors and the second longest serving director of the fbi, for the last 12 years, an exemplary public servant, bob mueller. by law fbi directors only serve for 10 years, but back in 2011, when bob's term was up, i asked

congress to give him two more years. it was not a request i made lightly, and i know congress did not grant it lightly, but at the time transitions were underway at the cia and the pentagon, and given the threats facing our nation, it was critical to have bob's strong leadership at the bureau. 12 years is a long time to do anything. and i guarantee you that bob's wife agrees. in addition to asking congress, we need approval from ann as well. today, as bob prepares to complete his service, this is a wonderful opportunity for all of us as a nation to say thank you to bob and ann, but also gives me a chance to announce my next choice for the fbi director, jim comey. every day their staff devotes

their lives to keep us secure, from the streets of our cities to the battlefield of afghanistan. they embody the core principles of fidelity, bravery, and integrity. bob mueller has embodied those values through decades of public service and lived them every day as fbi director during an extraordinary time in our nation's history. bob, some of you will recall, was sworn in just days before 9/11. bob not only played a key role in her response to those attacks, he began one of the biggest transformations of the fbi in history to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again. like the marine that he has always been, bob never took his eyes off his mission. under his watch, the fbi joined forces with our intelligence, military, and homeland security professionals to break up al qaeda's cells and their plots.

i will say it as clearly as i can, many americans are alive today and our country is more secure because of the fbi's outstanding work under the leadership of bob mueller. bob and the fbi had been tireless against a whole range of challenges, from preventing violent crime and reducing gang activity, including along our border, to cracking down on white-collar criminals. today, there are many in the fbi who have never known the bureau without bob at the helm, and like us, they have admired his tenacity, his calm under pressure, devotion to our security, and his fidelity to the values that make us who we are. it is a trademark attributed to his humility that most of you would not recognize him on the street, but all of us are better because of his service. bob, i cannot tell you how grateful i am to you for your

service. i know everyone here knows you will be remembered as one of the finest directors in the history of the fbi and one of the most admired public servants of our time. personally, not only has it been a pleasure to work with bob, but i know very few people in public life who have shown more integrity more consistently, under more pressure than bob mueller. [applause] i think bob will agree when i say we have the perfect person to carry on this work in jim comey, a man who stands very tall for justice and the rule of law.

i was saying while we were taking pictures with his gorgeous family here that they are all what michelle calls normalites. the grandson of a patrolman who worked his way up to leave the yonkers police department, he has law enforcement in his blood. he helped bring down the gambino crime family, as a federal prosecutor in virginia he led an aggressive effort to combat gun violence reduce homicide rates and save lives, and he has been relentless, whether standing up for consumers against corporate fraud or bringing terrorists to justice. and as deputy attorney general he helped lead the justice department with skill and wisdom meeting threats we know about and staying perpetually prepared for the ones that can emerge suddenly. so jim is exceptionally qualified to handle the full range of challenges a spy today's fbi, from threats like violence and organized crime to

protecting civil rights and children from exploitation, to meeting transnational challenges like terrorism and cyber threats. just as important as jim's experience is his character. he has talked about how he and his brother nearly lost their lives. they were at home when an intruder held them at gunpoint. he understands deeply in his core the anguish of victims of crime, what they go through, and he has made it his life's work to spare others that pain. to know jim is to know his independence and his deep integrity. like bob, who has been in washington for some time, he does not care for politics, he only cares about getting the job done. in key moments he joined bob in standing up for what he believed was right and was prepared to give up the job he loved rather

than be part of something he felt was fundamentally wrong. as jim has said, we know the rule of law sets this nation apart and -- its foundation. jim understands at a time of crisis we are not just solely by how many plots we bring to justice, we are judged by our -- commitment to the constitution we have sworn to protect and - defend. this work of striking a balance with security, but also making sure we are maintaining fidelity to those values that we cherish is a constant mission. that is who we are. and it is in large part because of my confidence, not only in his experience and his skill, but his integrity that i am confident that jim will be a leader who understands how to keep america safe and stay true to our founding ideals no matter what the future may bring. so to bob and ann, thank you for your service.

i want to thank jim, his wife, patrice, and his family who are here -- maureen, katherine, brian, claire, and abby -- as he takes on this important role. he could not do this without you and he is extraordinarily proud of all of you, and i can see why. this is a 10-year assignment. i make this nomination confident that long after i left office our security will be in good hands with servants like jim comey, and so i urge as usual for the senate to act promptly with hearings and to confirm our next fbi director right away. i would like now to give both of them a chance to say a few words, starting with bob. >> let me start by thanking you for those kind words. i also want to express my

gratitude to both president bush and president obama for giving me the honor and a privilege of serving as the fbi director during these last few years. i want to take the opportunity to thank the men and women of the fbi. it is through their work, dedication, and their adaptability that the fbi is better able to predict and prevent terrorism and crime of here and abroad. i want to thank my wife and my family for the support and their patience over the last 12 years, and i want to commend the president for the choice of jim comey as the next rector of the fbi. i have had the opportunity to work with jim or a number of years in the department of justice, and i have found him to be a man of honesty, dedication, and integrity. his experience, judgment, and strong sense of humility will

benefit not only the bureau, but the country as a whole. again, mr. president, thank you for this opportunity to serve. [applause] >> thank you, mr. president, for this honor and opportunity. i am not sure i have words to describe how excited i am to return to justice and especially to get work again with the people of the fbi. they are men and women who have devoted their lives to serving and protecting others, and i cannot wait to be there colleague yet again. everything i am and have done in my adult life is due to the great good fortune of marrying

up. thanks to the long and support and occasional constructive criticism of my beloved troops, of my amazing wife, patrice and abby, claire, brian, kate, and maureen, i am a much better person than i would have been i love you guys. i have a debt i cannot repay you, but thank you for that. i must be out of my mind to be following bob mueller. i do not know whether i can fill those shoes, but i know however i do i will be standing truly on the shoulders of a giant, someone who has made a remarkable difference in the life of this country. i can promise you, mr. president and mr. director, i will do my very best to honor and protect that legacy, and i thank you again for this chance to serve. thank you. [applause] >> can we give bob mueller and ann one more round of applause?

[applause] >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] when you talk about transparency to the american public, you are going to give up something. you are going to give signals to our adversaries what our weaknesses are, and the more specific you get about the program, the oversight, the capabilities and the successes,

to the extent, you have people sitting around saying, "ok, now i understand what can be done with our numbers in yemen, and consequently i have to find another way to communicate, and i have to keep that in mind." there's a price to pay for that transparency. where that line is drawn is out of our hands. you tell us to do it one way, we will do it that way, but there's a price to be paid for that transparency. >> this weekend, outgoing the i director robert mueller makes his last scheduled appearance before the senate judiciary committee -- outgoing fbi director you. 3, interviews with staff on whether there were grounds to impeach president nixon. sunday at 3:00.

>> senate minority leader mitch mcconnell spoke today about free speech and intimidation by government agencies under the obama administration. he also answered questions from the audience. from the american enterprise institute, this is 55 minutes. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. good morning. jo soy arthur brooks, president of the american enterprise institute, and i'm delighted to welcome you to this address by senate minority leader mitch mcconnell. we are going to talk today about free speech. we are going to talk about the role of the government in the competition of ideas in this country. in 1960, the president of this institution created a new model for this institution, and it was very simple and very subversive at the time. it was that the competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society. when he said that, he had a

view that an washington, d.c., or anyplace where you are working with ideas, you are one of two types of people -- either you want to win the competition of ideas or you want to shut down the competition of ideas. you are one or the other. if you want to win the competition, you are fundamentally strengthening the pillars of society. if you want to shut it down, you are weakening the pillars of a free society. that was the view of one of our greatest founders. he, perhaps in a premonition that something bad was about to happen -- and indeed, the following year it did. the following year, he learned that the internal revenue service was on the side of shutting down the competition of ideas in this country. in 1961, john f. kennedy gave a speech about the discontented voice. the internal revenue service launched the ideological organization audit project. they targeted the american enterprise institute directly.

as a direct result of john f kennedy talking about the corrosive impact of ideological organizations in the war of ideas and they targeted this very institution. once again, we sue the federal government to the irs has shown that it is shutting down the competition of ideas. we are joined by one of our best friend here at aei. mitch mcconnell is a great friend to us here at aei. it is always an honor for us to welcome him here to share his thoughts and none more so than it is here today. senator mitch mcconnell. [applause] >> good morning.

i appreciate you all being here, and i want to thank you arthur. where did you go there you are. for the terrific leadership you survive here at aei, one of the most indispensable institutions in washington. arthur is a player manager in the think tank world. he not only steers the ship, he is generating some of the best research. he also has a lot of fans on the hill and it is safe to say he is a model and an inspiration to college dropouts. and disillusioned french one players everywhere. [laughter][applause] last june i said here and warned of a grave and growing threat to the first amendment. that threat has not let up at all. our ability to freely engage in civic life in defense of our

beliefs is still under coordinated assault from groups on the left who do not like anyone criticizing them. from the white house that appears determined to shut up anybody who disagrees with it. on the outside, there is a well documented effort by a number of left-wing groups like media matters who -- who harass and intimidate conservatives with the goal of scaring them off the political playing field and off of the airwaves as well. an internal media matters memo showed the extent to which these tactics have been turned into a science. we learned of the groups plan to conduct oppositional research into the lives of on-air news personalities and other key

decision-makers over at fox news. and to coordinate with partner groups to pressure the advertisers and shareholders to by the threat of boycotts, rallies, shame, embarrassment, and other tactics on a variety of issues important to the progressive agenda. they had to make up a new name after the reagan era because the term liberal is pejorative to most americans these days. it's databases can also use to remove chronically problematic media figures. or to preempt programming altogether. then of course there is the widespread effort to stifle speech from within the

government itself. something the obama administration has engaged in from its earliest days. to trace this back even further to the 2008 campaign, when i was here with you last june, and my central point today is the attack on speech that we've seen over the past several years were never, never limited to a few left-wing pressure groups or even to the disclose up which is been promoted in congress. extend throughout the federal government to places like the fdc, the fcc, the hhs, and as all americans know, even to the irs. these assaults have often been aided and abetted by allies in

congress. as for the irs, i have got a phone call from a constituent laster who said he'd been subjected to extensive questioning and unreasonable deadlines from the irs. when similar complaints followed, i sent a letter to commissioner shulman asking for assurances that there was not any little targeting going on. public office in the irs depended on it. six weeks later i got a response from stephen miller in which he said to move along, nothing to see here. well, we know that was not the case. we now know the irs was actually engaged in the targeted applications of conservatives and others who were criticizing

how the government was being run. you get audited for criticizing the government is being run? overwhelm him with questions and paperwork and in some case initiate audits. in one case in irs agent demanded that the board members of the iowa pro-life group signed a declaration that they would not pick it planned parenthood. and irs agent allegedly demanded that the board members of an iowa pro-life group signed a declaration that they would not picket planned parenthood. several pro-israel groups said they were single out by the irs after clashing with the administer shoot over its policy on settlements. then there is the story of catherine ingle brett. she said after applying for tax exempt status for a voter integrity group, she and her

husband were visited by the fbi, the atf, osha, and an affiliate of the epa. when all is said and done, osha told them that they had $25,000 in fines. the epa demanded they spent $42,000 on new sheds and three years after applying for tax exempt status, they are still awaiting approval. the list of stories like this goes on and on. now we have an administration that is desperately trying to prove that nobody at the top, nobody at the top was involved in any of the stuff. even as they hope that the media loses interest in the scandal and moves on. but we will not move on. as serious as the irs scandal is, what we are dealing with is larger than the actions of one agency, or group of them please,

this admin station has institutionalized the practice of picking bureaucrats against the people they should be serving and it should stop. the good news is that more people are beginning to catch on. when i warned about this last year, i got slammed by the usual suspects on the left, as you can imagine. they said i was full of it. even some of the now realize that just because mcconnell is the one pulling the long, it is not mean there is not a fire. the irs scandal has reminded people of the temptations to abuse big government and its little patrons. people are waking up to a pattern, they are connecting the dots, and they are rightly troubled. looking back, the irs scandal helped explain a lot of the things the minister nation has done.

you all are member the president wagging his finger at the supreme court. the president wagging his finger at the supreme court sitting right there in the house of representatives during the 2010 state of the union. i assure you that this piece of presidential theater was not done for the ratings. he spent so much time and energy denouncing the case, but it's not the reason they gave. i realize this might be shocking to some of the interns in the crowd. the fact is the court decision was actually fairly unremarkable. all it really said was that under the first amendment every corporation in america should be free to participate in the political process, not just the ones that own television and newspapers.

why should a corporation that owns television stations get a card? free speech and everybody else does not. in other words, there should not be that when it comes to clinical speech who own media companies. it was a good and fair decision aimed at leveling the playing field. the real reason, the real reason the left was so concerned about citizens united is that they thought it meant more conservatives would form well for organizations. groups like planned parenthood and the sierra club, for example are groups like this. what is notable is that they do not have to disclose their donors, they do not have to disclose their donors. that was the main concern of the president and his allies, they were not interested in the integrity of the process.

if they were, they would've been just as upset at left-wing groups for remaining private for their donors. they really wanted was a hoax to stir outrage about conservative groups so that they could get their hands on the names of the folks who supported them. that is what this is about, they wanted to get their hooks on the names of the folks who supported groups that disagreed with the administration. and then they wanted to go after them. citizens united simply provided that hook. as a longtime political observer and first women hop, i knew exactly what the democrats were up to with their complaints about this decision. i have seen what the proponents of disclosure have intended and that past and it is not good government. that is why the donor list has been protected of the socialist worker party since 1979.

that is also why the supreme court told the state of alabama that it cannot force of the naacp to disclose its donor list back in 1958. the president could claim as he did six months after wagging his finger at the supreme court that the only people who do not want to disclose the truth of people with something to hide. he can claim that, but the fact is there is very good and legitimate reason that the court has detected folks from force disclosure. they know that failing to do so would subject them to the kind of harassment that we have been seeing here the last three years. the political response to citizens united with the so- called disclose act was not about cleaning up politics, it was about finding a blunt political weapon to be used

against any one group and one group only. conservatives. those who doubt this have not and paying attention to the tactics of the left. they must not have noticed the stories about top administration officials holding weekly phone calls with groups like media matters. they clearly do not know their history, and they must not have noticed the enemies list of conservative donors on the obama campaign website. or the strategic name dropping of conservative targets by the president's campaign team. these folks were talking about the coke brother so much, you would think they were running for president. but six months after the president rated the supreme court, he called out americans for prosperity by name. it was like sending a memo to the irs that said audit these guys. all of these things together point to a coordinated effort to stifle speech, and that is why one of the most enduring lessons in the irs scandal comes from

the timeline. we now know a team of irs specialist was tasked with isolate and conservatives for scrutiny as early as march of 2010. what matters is not where they were doing it, what really matters is that it coincided with a very public campaign by the president and a small army of left-wing allies in and out of government to vilify anyone who had recently formed the group around conservative policies. what happened before this party began is just as important as what happened after the targeting began. what matters is the atmosphere, what matters is the culture of intimidation, the culture of intimidation this resident and his allies created around any person or group that spoke up for conservatism or against the

direction the president wanted to take us. the so-called special interest, he said special interest would flood the political process with money that would be coming from foreign entities. the problem he said his nobody knows who is behind these groups. they were shadowy, they might even be foreign controlled. these were the kind of unsubstantiated claims the president and his allied claim from early 2010 right up and threw the election. they were just as reckless and preposterous as harry sang mitt romney has not paid taxes in 10 years. they might have been wrapped and appealing rhetoric of disclosure, but make no mistake, the goal was to win at any cost.

that meant shutting off their opponents in any way they could. i don't believe they picked up the phone and told someone at the irs to slow up these applications or audit anybody, but the truth is he did not have to. he did not have to do that. the message was clear enough. but if the message was clear the medium was also suited to the cause. and the public-sector unions have made a pact between those who tend to benefit from the growth of government. let us face it, when elected leaders and union bosses tell us that they should view half the american people as being a threat to democracy, it should

not surprise any of us that they would look at it that way. why would we even expect a public and fully whose union more or less exist to grow the government to treat someone who opposes that goal to a fair hearing. when the tea party was public vilified, is it any wonder that members of the union would get caught targeting them? this is something liberals used to worry about. fdr himself was horrified at the idea of look workers conspiring with lawmakers on how to divide up the tax payer pie. the him it was completely incompatible with public service to the public to be cut out of a negotiation in which the two sides were bartering over their money. even the first president of the flc 07 was impossible to bargain collective league with the

government. if that is is actually had today. over the past several decades, the same public employees have conspired with congress to expand those powers even more. and you endlessly increase the budgets that finance them. this is not done in the interest of serving taxpayers, it is done in the interest of policing them. because that is what happens when politicians start competing with the support of public sector unions, they stop serving the interests of people who elected them and start serving the interest of the government that they are supposed to be keeping in check. there is no better illustration than the news this week that the congressional hearings unionized employees at the irs about it $70 million in bonuses. $70 million in bonuses.

the irs union is thumbing its nose at the american people, it is telling them in the clearest possible terms that it does not care about the scandal or how well the government works or how well it is even serving the public. all it cares about is helping union workers get theirs. it is pure arrogance, and it reflects a sense of entitlement better suited to an aristocracy then a nation of constitutional self-government. it is increasingly appropriate to ask whose interest these public sector unions have in mind? the taxpayers? or their own? on this question, i will say that public sector unions are 50 year mistake. years ago i saw the dangerous potential for collusion between lawmakers and public security and when i served as executive

of my own county. i fought hard against the formation of public-sector unions and at the time there was a bipartisan agreement on this issue. most people realized it was not in the public interest. unfortunately, the appeal of union support proved too great for some and shortly after i was elected to the senate, they vacated my office and the dam of resistance broke. and it has been gutting the finances of every state in local government in the country. the existence of public employee unions is without question a big part of the reason people of so little trust in government these days. they are the reason so many state and local minas appellees are flat broke. they are behind public pensions. today i'm calling for a serious national debate about them. on the federal level, the first

thing we should do is stop the automatic transfer of union dues from employee salaries at the taxpayers expense. [applause] if the unions want their dues, it should be incumbent on them and not us to pay for it. the assault on free speech continues, and it is fairly an uphill battle. but if we are alert to the tactics of the left, and take these assaults one by one, i am confident that we can beat them back. let me give you a few final examples of what i'm talking about. right now there is an effort over at the federal communications commission to get groups that buy campaign ads to disclose their supporters. this is utterly, utterly irrelevant to the mission of the fcc. and we need to say so. the sec is being pushed to display their public supporters.

this proposal does not protect shareholders and it does not protect governors. for the left, this is not about good government or corporate governance, is about winning at all costs. even if that means shredding the first amendment and that is why we need to be vigilant about every one of these assaults. they might seem small and isolated in the particular, but together they reflect a culture of intimidation that extends throughout the government. a culture abetted by a bureaucracy that stands to benefit from it. the moment a gang of u.s. senators started writing letters last year demanding the irs enforce more disclosure upon conservative groups, we should have all cried foul. the moment white house proposed

a draft order replying applicants for government contracts to disclose their political affiliations, we all should call them out. when the hhs secretary told insurance companies, back during the obamacare debate, told insurance companies that they could not tell their customers how obamacare would impact them, we all should have pulled the alarm. as soon as we learned that left- wing groups were manufacturing public outcry for corporate disclosure at the sec, we should have exposed that for what it was. there might be some folks other waiting for hand signed memo from president obama to lois learned to turn up. do not hold your breath. what i'm saying that a court made a campaign to use the levers levers of government to target conservatives and stifle speech has been in full swing and in open view for all of us

to see for years. it has been carried out by the same people who say there is nothing more to the disclose act then transparency and no more two other disclosure regulations than good government. but the irs scandal puts the lie to all of the posturing. because now we know what happens when government gets its hands on this kind of information. when it is able to isolate its opponents and whether you are a pro-israel group, or a tea party group in louisville, they can make your life miserable. they can force you off the political playing field which is precisely what we cannot allow. there are a lot of important questions that remain to be answered about the irs scandal, but let's not lose sight of the larger scandal that has been

right in front of us for five years. a sitting president who simply refuses to accept the fact that the public will not applaud everything that he does. this president expects the public to applaud everything that he does. my plea to you today is that you call out his attacks on the first amendment whenever you see them, regardless of the target. because the right to free speech does not exist to protect what is popular, it exists to protect what is unpopular. the moment we forget that, we are all at risk from right to left. if liberals cannot compete on a level playing field, they should make up better arguments. what is wrong with the competition of ideas? if your argument is so weak that

you have to try to intimidate and shut up your opponents in order to win the game? look, the only way to beat a bully is to fight back and that is all of us need to do. be wise to the way of the left and never give an inch when it comes to free speech. thank you very much. [applause] >> we have time for some,, yes, yes ma'am. >> hi, my name is barbara from new york. is there any suspicion that intimidation goes beyond the irs

and the things you mentioned. it is frightening considering that our government has things like stunt guns and star wars. >> i will not speculate where else they exist, where they already exist is pretty stunning. we have seen that at hhs. they sent out a directive to health recoveries that they cannot tell their policy holders with the impact of obamacare would do to them. this is the same secretary that is shaking them down for money in order to run television advertising supporting obamacare. then of course over the fcc obama proposed an initiative that require you a condition to pursue what ever cause you may have to disclosure donors you are making advertisement.

and then we have seen what is happening at the irs. the president himself has been demonizing these people and so the point i'm making here today is that it is not surprising that the bureaucracy would pick up on that. and think they would pick up on that and say that is what we are supposed to do. the ceo has laid out the game plan, so i don't know what my else be going on, but the things we do know are going on our right in front of us and they are beyond disturbing. leave me, if this were a republican administration and these were liberal groups that were being subjected to this kind of treatment, this would be big news on the front page of "the new york times," on a daily basis. >> i am elizabeth regular citizen. tank you for coming and educating us. they after day, we hear a litany

of corruption and abuses which should not surprise us because we know that president obama has in his mind and is determined to fundamentally change and transform america. despite what karl rove advised, is there not any of these abuses which legally rises to an impeachable offense? i'm sorry to put you on the spot, but you will not answer my e-mails. >> i think we need a thorough and complete investigation and let the facts take us where we will go. i am confident the house of representatives will have a thorough investigation, at least two committees i am aware of. they are pursuing this and a methodical way and i don't want to jump to any conclusions, i

just love the fax to take us where they take us. i am prepared to say that the president and his political allies encouraged this kind of bureaucratic overreach by their public comments, but that is what different from saying they ordered it. i think we need to find out who is responsible and the investigation will go on for quite some time. >> hello, a couple of your colleagues have proposed a constitutional amendment that would specify that no rights in the constitution would apply to corporations. i'm just wondering if you could react to that and maybe discuss

what some of the consequences of that would be. >> give them some points for not hiding it. the constitution has been amended very rarely in our well over 200 year history. for good reason, it has served us well. they were not uncomfortable with corporate free speech when corporations that owned newspapers or television stations were engaging in it, they only become uncomfortable ones of report said why should there be a carveout for corporations that own the media out and for no one else? it is an absurd proposal.it will not go anywhere. >> what you think about the efforts of michael bloomberg to encourage democratic donors a particular amount of votes in the senate.

>> he can express himself, and i support the right for him to say whatever he wants to. i obviously, from a partisan point of view, i hope they [laughter]him. >> i am part of the mccain institute and i'm currently a student at the university of texas and i am wondering about this issue, it seems like they are starting to notice obama's immortality is disappearing and that he is flawed. what will it take for them to go maybe it is time to see the light and understand that he is not all he's cracked up to be? >> i think it is keeping your eyes open and watching what is

happening. simple observations. it is not surprising -- the biggest difference between the two parties today in america, they are the party of government and we are the party of the private sector. that is not that we should think there is no government at all, but they really trust the government. that is why they are in such a tight alliance with a look employee unions who are the principal benefactor of larger government and to have little or no interest in bigger and bigger debt. to the extent that they have become skeptical, that maybe this degree of government is not such a good idea, that is an encouraging sign. one of the great things about being young is that if your health holds up, you get older. it is amazing how your views change as you advance in age and

i hope they will simply observe what is going on. this is what you get when you elect a government that believes government is the answer. and for two years they owned the place. they had a great election in 2008. they can do whatever they wanted to, and they did. $300 stimulus, take over american healthcare, the student loan program, first four years of $20 deficits, they could do whatever they wanted to. the encouraging thing is that in 2010, they look to that initiative national restraining order. my guess is they were younger voters who began to have second thoughts.

the president was reelected, but he did not have the kind of election he did in 2008. he did not flip the house am a change the senate much, it was status quo at the federal level. at the state level 30 out of 50 governors are now republicans. it was not a wiped out election. now we have divided government and divided government can do one of two things, they can do great things as reagan and tip o'neill did when they raised the age of social security and they did the last conference of tax reform, or even bill clinton when he joined a republican congress and did welfare reform.

what has been missing during this time of divided government from 2010 until now is a president willing to tackle the single biggest issues in country. it can only be done on a bipartisan basis, and the transcendent issue of our time is the size of our debt. what i have been waiting for with this president, i have plenty of differences with the president, he will be here for 3.5 years and what will he do? if you want to pivot and help us solve the biggest issues confronting your generation in the future, we need to try and do that, but i've not seen any evidence of it. i've not seen any evidence that he is willing to leave this ideological place or he is put himself in for virtually all of his presidency and move in a

different direction. i have wondered the field from your comment, but i think younger voters are getting more skeptical because they are watching what is happening. >> mpr had a story this week where they quoted if you left- wing organizations that said they have undergone undue scrutiny as well, that they have been asked unwanted questions. don't we want the irs to make sure that those groups are not being given tax exempt status? >> i think it will be easy to get tax-exempt status whether you are on the left or right. i'll think the government should deny a status that should be rather easy to achieve.

i am not a fan of harassing either right or left. >> i just want to follow up on that. this claim is being made that these groups are abusing their tax status, i'm not seeing any proof of those claims. if they were not 501(c) organizations, presumably to be 527 organizations and from the standpoint of revenue collection does this make any difference for the federal government and the irs? >> none whatsoever. good point. >> senator, you mentioned about the fact that 501(c) organizations do not have to disclose their donors, and that is true that they do not have to disclose them publicly. i represent the national organization for marriage.

donors were released by the irs illegally. the goal opponents and it is still posted on their website. would you support a legislation that they would no longer have to disclose their donors to the irs? >> i have not thought about it, i assume you've given that case examples to the house republicans. >> yes, we asked foran investigation a year ago, but the irs will not give us a report because they are hiding behind taxpayer confidentiality and they are saying it is confidential. they will not tell us the identity of the individuals within the irs who were responsible for that disclosure. >> my bias is in favor of as much political speech as possible with minimal amount of government interference and

harassment on the left or right or anyone else. i think the last thing the american people suffer from is too little political discourse. that would be my general philosophical approach to all of these issues. there is a rational basis for groups like as not having to disclose, that is what the supreme court decision was all about. it is one thing to require disclosure when you give to a candidate or to a party, i do not oppose that. i think my voters and all of you should know who supports my campaign and my party. but these are not contributions to candidates or parties, these are contributions to groups and sometimes that does intersect

with what is going on politically because it is important to remember that only those who get elected make policy. so, a lot of issues that people want to discuss certainly do intersect with the political discussion that is going on because they might have views that are better represented by one point of view versus the other. to me, this is not a subject we should be alarmed about. that we should think is something that needs to be dealt with, i think it is something that needs to be encouraged. >> senator, -- >> i have enjoyed you over the years, norm. you have been wrong about almost everything. [laughter] i've always wondered who has eaten lunch with you over the years.

some of the worst things that have been said about me have been said by you. you have been entirely wrong on virtually every occasion i'm glad to see what is on your mind. [laughter] >> one thing we agree on is that some of the worst things that are said about me have been said by you. >> i didn't make anything up, i was quoting you directly. >> my first question is that in 2000 on "meet the press," you gave an eloquent defense on disclosure and why a little disclosure is better than a lot of disclosure. in the citizens united decision, we had eight justices including robert scalia and alito all caps and equally full throated defense of disclosure of all sorts including shareholders

knowing what their companies doing in the political front. why -- >> of course that is not accurate. they didn't say was a matter of constitutional interpretation, i am sure that if we passed it they would not strike you down. with regard to disclosure, you have to go back to the 1980's to find a time when i suggested -- which i did and i was wrong bout it -- to find a time that i suggested that disclosure of 501(c) was a good idea. i made a mistake, the supreme court left that up to congress to decide and the democrats tried to pass the disclose act selectica the names of our

critics and we want to make it difficult for them. >> let me ask one more question about 501c. the law says that they are supposed to be exclusively welfare organizations, to believe that organizing for america and america's crossroad gps are exclusively welfare organizations? >> the interpretation that the rs has had going back 40 or 50 years, i agree with. let me tell you what norm is really for. what he's really for is the government telling candidates for congress how much they can spend government mandated spending limits, and using tax money to pay for it. if norm had his way, he would push the private sector all the way out of the process of getting elected. you would file, the government would tell you how much you could speak and spend, the government would give you the

money to pay for your speech. a total government takeover of the whole process from the time you file, to the time you're sworn in. what congress is that likely to produce? the kind that was to go the government because the government would be in charge of how they got there. make no mistake, norm is a good old-fashioned far left guy. i like him, he has been wrong for as long as i can remember and it is great to see you i want to spar with you for years. [applause] >> paul from cnn, the issue of immigration tuesday, one area that the two parties are omprimising. how do you think this will sort out? >> i am not doing an immigration press conference here. we will be on that matter for nother week or so.

how about that young lady right there? >> senator, thank you so much for coming. i was wondering, just looking at mexico and how they have had political turmoil and yet they are still pushing forward a number of substantial legislation and policy they want to get accomplished, they are still able to do that even though they have had a ethical political environment. you said the president has been unwilling to negotiate and deal with the government that he is faced with. is there anyway we can work through that and the comp but some of the things he mentioned like tax reform, dealing with irs? >> i hope so. it is up to the president. the president and our system is unique. there is only one person in america that can sign something into law and only one person who

can deliver to the members of his party. the speaker and i have tried to engage the president for 4.5 years to tackle the transcendent issue of our time, unfunded liabilities and our current debt which is stunning. i think, as part of his responsibility, what i hope what he will decided to engage in a serious discussion about how to get an outcome to the biggest problem facing our country. we've not seen that yet, but i can't give up hope because he will be there 3.5 more years. we have do deal with the government we have, not the one hat we hope for. >> do you have any thoughts

about reauthorizing the anthony statute so we can get some of these investigations out from under the thumb of his partnership? -- department of justice? >> i have let that happily expire in the late 90's. i don't think it's her of the country well at all and i would not be in favor of bringing it back. it was one of the post watergate reforms -- most of those have not worked out very well. i don't think going back to that would be a step in the right direction. >> hello, i am in internet freedom works and i was curious about what you are thoughts were on the nsa's overreach as far as wiretapping? how would you think it should be addressed? do you think it needs to be reformed? >> i will confine the discussion

today to things that are largely related to the subject of my speech and the independent counsel is in a way because it was part of the post-watergate reforms. any other questions on the topic that we have been talking about this morning? ow about right here? >> hello, i just wanted to -- in relation to public employee unions and your decision to have them scaled back, i just wondered if you want to comment on scott walker and how that can be translated nationally in other states? >> i think it has been a emarkable success story. i might not have this totally accurate, but roughly accurate that once the employees in wisconsin were given the option of not paying their dues,

apparently the support plummeted. meaning that the employees, when given the choice, decided that representation was not that important to them. regardless of whether you have them or not, the larger question i wanted to raisee today is the appropriateness. that's why i went back to fdr, the appropriateness of unions in the public sector because in every negotiation there is a missing person, and the missing person is the taxpayer. the negotiation is between today's public official in today's union leader reaching an agreement to obligate the taxpayer and their future and there is no taxpayer there.

i believe that is why fdr, at least initially, felt that unions are entirely appropriate in the private sector. i support private-sector nionism. there is an election, a secret ballot election, winners when, and losers accept it. but it seems to be as fundamental a incompatible. if you look at the results of that, with the pension problems all across the country, virtually every state in the country is awash with pension roblems. he of people that work in the government actively discouraging and bring the power of the government down on the people who think the federal government s too big. it strikes me that this is a 50 year mistake and it is time to

have a discussion again of the appropriateness of unionism in the public sector. in the private sector, find. -- fine. i don't have a problem with that. but because we are suffering the consequence is that. i will take one more uestion. >> first, an observation about norms comment earlier where he talked about social welfare. when congress set up that statue in the 50's, there is no evidence that they intended to exclude political activity. i wondered your thoughts about his. do people trying to improve their government, couldn't that improve the social welfare in our nation if people use

political activity? >> obviously, that is my view. i think we should be encouraging this sort of thing and not discouraging it. the whole disclosure game has nothing to do with anything other than going after your donors. it would never offended by this until the last few years when conservatives started doing more of that. all the sudden, this is a fairly recent outrage here. this is about nothing other than getting the names of your donors o you can go after them. we should be discouraging that in every way we possibly can and encouraging this kind of participation. this kind of involvement is the kind we ought to have and goodness gracious to have the government itself picking winners and losers in the game of political speech is -- outrage.

thank you for being here so much. [applause] >> tonight on c-span, the congressional internet caucus discusses data collection programs and privacy laws. followed by a like at cyber ecurity for u.s. businesses. then alan greenspan. tomorrow on "washington journal" we'll talk about the federal research's plans for its sometime yu luss program. followed by issues important to younger americans, including

student loan interest rates. and the washington post reports hat they use photo database to identify suspects in criminal investigations. e'll talk with the reporter. "washington journal" live on c-span at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> when you talk about transparency to the american public there is -- you're going to give up something. you're going to be giving signal to our adversaries about what weaknesses are. the more specific you get you are having people sitting around saying ok, now i understand what can be done with our numbers in yemen and in the united states and i'm going to find another

way to communicate. there's a price to be paid for that transparency. where that line is drawn in terms of identifying what our capabilities are are out of our hands. there's a price to be paid for that transparency. >> this weekend on c-span, outgoing f.b.i. director robert muller makes his last scheduled appearance. on c-span2, books and issues in the news on book tv. sunday at 10:00, immigration stories. interviews with key house judiciary staff, discussing whether there were there was grounds to impeach president nixon. >> a report about collecting phones and e-mails. a caucus internet committee held a meeting today. eakers are from the cato

institute. this is about an hour. withful s roger, i'm r.j. c. associates and i'm a founding board member. on behalf of the internet education program and the caucus welcome to today's discussion. let me tell all of you that the tweeter hashtag for today's #icacnsa.

for about 20 years, the internet ducation program has pursued policies on the education and done this in a completely nonpartisan and educational way. this includes the work of the professional internet caucus advisory committee, of which today's discussion is apart, and they also include the net conference, mobile net, and get netwise, and we expect soon on internet applications. i encourage you to visit our website -- neted.org --and learn more about the internet a education. f you like our work, i

encourage you to be one of our upporters. today's discussion is one of the series of discussion sponsored by the internet advisory committee. the internet caucus advisory committee is made up of trade organizations, nonprofit organizations, professional organizations, businesses, and others who are interested in and supportive of a neutral and open dialogue about the internet and its activities and functions. like all such events, it is made possible true the support and leadership of the internet caucuses cochairs, senators leahy and thune. again, the hashtag is #icacnsa.

and the website is neted.org. our topic could not be more important or more timely. we will conclude by 1:00. the discussion will be led by mary ellen callahan, a partner with the law firm of general and block and former chief privacy officer of the department of homeland security. we all look forward to an interesting program. mary ellen, thank you. >> welcome that -- welcome, everybody. i want to briefly introduce my colleagues on the panel. we will go very quickly and cover a lot of topics. we will try to keep on our time. alphabetically to my left i have alan davidson, a visiting scholar at m.i.t. and former director of public policy at

google for the americas. next to him is michelle, the legislative counsel at the americans civil liberties union. julian sanchez rom the cato institute, and at the far end, mike, a partner at steptoe and johnson and formerly worked at the department of justice. we are going to talk about these issues and the information. i will give you a brief overview based on public accounts and recent testimony. this is an overview of the accounts as we know them related to programs. this will help us inform and define the rest of the discussion. first, what is the national security agency and why was that getting the records?

the nsa's technical and legal authorities of expanded over the decades to expand to foreign intelligence and counter intelligence and in the past primarily operated outside the united states. the programs we are discussing today, however, direct the content of manage data directly to the nsa after the fbi secured fisa court orders to secure documents. in this capacity, nsa is operating as a technical service provider of sorts, receiving the information directly, but on behalf of the fbi and analyzing information under the fbi's jurisdictional activities. the fisa act as a 1978 law that has been modified several times. it was designed for procedures of election of foreign intelligence information between foreign powers, agents of foreign powers, as well as those elated to terrorism activities

since september 11. the original intent was to revive judicial oversight of covert intelligence activities. the fisa court has been appointed by the chief justice to serve for a seven-year term. he fisa court is ex parte. let's talk about the programs. first, the collection of business records, also known as section 215 of the usa patriot act. the patriot act as the -- takes business records. business records are defined as any tangible thing." they have the authority to produce on behalf of the fbi

telephone records for communications between united states and abroad, or wholly within the united states including vocal telephone calls. the local orders are appeared to commence on the issuance of the fifo order and run 90 days. the leak -- if the leak is indicative of the overall process. according to the doj, the leaked order is one of two orders issued simultaneously to be read together. the other order outlines what the fbi can and cannot do with he access information. doj has also testified about the limit of access and use of this data and some of those internal procedures were disclosed by the guardian yesterday. the data includes the number that was dealt from, the number that was doubt to, the day and the time and the length of the call.

the fbi received 21 business record fisa court orders and nine in 2010 according to doj testimony. prism is section five of the fisa amendments act. section five is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-us persons located out the united states. it cannot be used to intentionally target any u.s. citizen, u.s. person, anyone within the united date. but a u.s. citizen may be the result of targeting a non-us erson. section 202 requires that cable companies and internet companies such as google and yahoo -- it indicated there was direct access to the information and user profiles. as i understand it now, that has been corrected. at the piers the online companies received fisa court orders, although how the

information is accessed by the nsa has not yet been clearly defined. the order contains information for multiple accounts and can include requests for content information. intelligence officers are able to add the names of additional search queries up to one year later. for all fisa court orders, companies are prevented from his closing they received a fisa court order. this week google went to the fisa court to seek permission to explicitly state how many fisa orders it has responded to every year. general alexander testified the use of these programs stopped 50 errorist events. for section 202 and 10 using business record information. he did not have a number on the

percentage of intel of essential intelligence coming out of the use of the business records metadata information. that was very long, but i wanted everybody to be operating on the same acronyms and terms as we go through this rapid pace questioning. so, i want to open it up to the panel and ask a broad overarching fustian. what are your overall observations about these programs as recently disclosed and do you distinguish the two programs from a legal or policy perspective? >> thank you, mary ellen. thank you for having me here today. a quick word of context to start off. american companies have for years received many, many requests -- legitimate request -- from the government to produce data. internet and telecom company specifically operate under very strict rules set forth by congress that require how they

comply with those requests and they get thousands every year. a large company get thousands of these every year. google has added transparency report for well. lester they received 42,000 law enforcement request, not including the kind of request we are talking about today. microsoft without its report in march. they got over 75,000 request in 012. i say all this because this is something that has been going on for a while in terms of producing information for the government and it is something companies take extremely seriously. i can say from experience, the monies, larger companies have whole teams dedicated to doing nothing but producing information for government requests. they were 24/7, weekends and holidays. they supply information quickly when an important information -- investigation is going on.

the question is not whether the government is going to get access or should get data to the content of conversations of telephone calls, e-mail. i think that has been asked and answered. the question, and it is an important question for congress, is what are the rules going to be? what standards apply? when should companies be required to turn this information over? that is the question raised by these two programs. just to highlight two particular things about these programs. the first -- well, i should say actually the standards actually make a very big difference. there are big differences between them in the ways that the standards operate. most americans think about a war and, like searching a home, you see on television. someone goes to a judge, gets a warrant, sees probable cause,

they search her home. we are talking about something very different where the rules are not based on probable cause, but your relevance to an ongoing national security investigation. the discussion with the judge happens in secret, ex parte. those differences are ultimately very important. that is what is interesting about these two revelations over he last couple of weeks. the first thing is, i think in the context of the verizon order that was disclosed about what telecommute and haitians -- what telecommunications companies are providing, i think what was surprising was the breath of that order and the fact that it is happening without a lot of strict wiring to a specific elephone call. the second thing that i think was surprising was the prism program, what appears to be the apparent ease of access to content.

this information elected in secret, potentially about u.s. nationals and people around the world. the question -- are the rules that we have in place effective enough of privacy? and i would say it's not just a civil liberties issue, that it is a business issue for companies. that is why you're hearing so much. it is a business issue because if people do not trust the services, they will not use them. that will not be good for american business, but it will not be good for the government's ability to get information in the future. those are the issues that i think get raised. >> thank you, alan. michelle? >> thank you.

we are disappointed to see that these tools are being used to collect information on everyday americans. over the last decade or so the american has asserted it can be trusted to use the patriot act, the fisa amendment act judiciously, that this was about people overseas, not you and me. we know that is not true with the leak from the guardian. the phone collection company -- rogram, we know collects the phone numbers of everybody in america every day. there is the statement from members of the senate intelligence community that confirms this is going to more than just verizon. this is a regular collection program being done across the different phone companies. we also know the fisa amendments act is being used for the full collection of internet data.

while it is nominally targeted at people overseas, it is regularly collecting the information and data of people inside the united states and that, the government is allowed to keep and use that information for certain purposes. i think right now there are two things congress needs to be thinking about. one is further disclosure. this is really just the tip of the iceberg and you need to get more information. for example, on the domestic collection programs under the patriot act. is it just phone records or is it more? records are not protected by the constitution. that means e-mail records, financial data, e-mail information. there were 212 orders like this last year. did some of them get this information? we need to understand the legal underpinnings better.

there are fisa orders supposedly under review that contain much more information about how the courts came to the decision that all of our records are relevant and can be sent to the nsa every single day. without that information it is very hard for congress to make an informed decision and have an informed debate. i think there is enough evidence now you can go in and start amending the statutes, especially to 15 of the patriot act. -- especially section 215 of the patriot act. it does not mean it cannot be used to surveil terrorists and spies. that is actually an appropriate use. it should not be used on everyday americans who are not suspected of doing anything wrong. >> thank you, michelle. julian? julian, can you put your

microphone on? >> it is a very different programs. there are different concerns raised by both of those. i hope that they are distinct, because when we talk about the utility of them, you see that one might useful and on balance, justifiable with certain limitations and the other not. and then we discussed them separately and two analysis independently. i will say they are similar in that they both appeared to represent element in a trend i think we expected or suspected f going on in the fisa court since 9/11, which is a shift on the restrictions from what could be required to the backend where you have very broad access and

analysts have the discretion to select which things will be queried for search. which selectors will be entered to pull up particular phone records or e-mail contents and various backend procedures are counted on to prevent that from being misused. i think that is, frankly, dangerous, in a way that -- that the fourth amendment was supposed to prevent. that it was centrally about moving discretion in search engines from executive agents to neutral message tracks. instead of letting the agent decide which homes to search and have a backend review to make sure they were not indiscriminately searching too many homes, you would they, no, you need an upfront weren't for this particular home you're going to search. the move away from that,

especially given the scale of the surveillance, which i think makes any meaningful oversight really more of a chimera than a reality, as evidenced by the fact that their findings -- more alidity. i'm not sure if that is enough to make us comfortable with this shift from front end to backend estrictions. once you got data, you've got the data. the backend restrictions on you -- on what you do with that last only until you decide to change them, and we will not necessarily know if they decide to change them. >> mike? >> as everybody has said so far, the two programs are very different. i want to make a couple of points.

try not to feel whiplash when you hear me talk. sometimes i will sound like a civil libertarian and sometimes like a former law enforcement person. i have perspectives on both that is not inconsistent. there with me. with regard to prism, which involves the election of so-called foreign information, where the target is supposed to be a so-called non-us person located abroad. key points to remember there, what is learned about the way that activity is being conducted is completely consistent with the terms of the statute and i do not think anyone can seriously argue that it's not. if you read the statute, everything that has been described you can see is -- jives with the statute. what is not so clear is the way

it has been described by government officials. you will hear nsa officials described the collection of u.s. information as incidental, which at the nsa is a term of art. to you and me, you look it up, it means accidental, unintentional. that is not what nsa means. nsa means the u.s. person is not the target, but they could very well be collecting information about the u.s. person. and the examples pretty much prove that. they cite this is the case --aussie case for example -- this zazi case, for example. they are looking for ties between four and terrorist's and people in the united states. that is something we want them to be doing.

but that collection is hardly incidental in the way that most people would use that term. i think it's important when you hear terms like that thrown about in hearings to be more skeptical of what "incidental" means. if you look at the targeting procedures that were leaked and the washington post and the guardian, you are probably not supposed to read those things because they are classified and the executive branch will tell you you're not supposed to read them. so, just read the articles. they are meant to collect information about u.s. persons as long as the u.s. person is not the ostensible target. and once they elect the information, they can retain it, disseminate its if it has intelligence value, relates to a crime, can be added to a technical database, whatever that means. so there are a lot of authorized ways to collect and retain the information about u.s.

persons. those are the points about prism. section 215. it has been described as a dragnet electing phone call information about every person in the united states. that is apparently accurate. i do not think it is necessarily accurate to say it is spying on all americans. what is being collected is imply phone numbers. not your name, not the content of the communications, but all the phone numbers so that nsa can analyze connections, so they can see what phone numbers are known terrorist calling and calling back? inside the u.s. or outside the u.s. once they determine a phone number needs to be looked at more carefully, and then they will go at a regular pfizer order which involves going to a judge and getting information -- a regular fisa order and involves going to a judge

getting information. there are protections in place. a final note about both programs -- really the important things are the minimization procedures in the targeting procedures. that is what all boils down to. exactly what are the rules regarding how the government gets this information and how it may use it. if you're satisfied those things are essentially protective, i think you will be more comforted with these programs. if you do not think that those are essentially rigorous, then you will be discomfited. we will talk about that in a bit. to me the key question is can you have meaningful oversight when these things are classified, so people are left wondering what are the minimization and targeting procedures?

with the leak, that is a bit of a moot point. >> thank you, mike. that is a great segue. you ended on the question of oversight. during the public hearing of the house intelligence to midi, the nsa and doj discussed the business records used in prism. mike, i thought we would talk about those oversight elements and do you think they are adequate as currently constructed? then i will turn that question to the rest of the panel. hanks. >> again, i will start with prism. actually, let me start with 215. 215 has two essential oversight mechanisms. first, the order has to be approved by a federal judge.

so, the department of justice will present an application to the court explaining what the basis for the order is and the court will have to grant the order. so, that should give you some comfort there. as julian was saying, that is the archetypal vision of the fourth amendment. you have a neutral magistrate making a pass of what the executive branch wants to do. the problem with that model when it comes to 215 orders is the government has a very broad definition of "investigation." remember, the information has to be relevant to an authorized investigation. most people read that -- in the statute, they will say ok, the government is investigating joe blow, so they want to collect information relative to joe blow somehow. this is clearly not how it is working.

the government is collecting phone records on all people in the united states. they are using an expansive investigation -- definition of investigation. if you say we are investigating terrorist and that is the scope of the information, then the role of the judges is pretty minor. essentially a signature and that's about it. there's not much more the judges doing. the second item is congressional oversight and i think there are serious questions about whether congressional oversight is adequate. it's really just the house and senate intelligence committees that typically engage in oversight of intelligence activities. everything is highly classified. and you know, there's not a lot of history of pushback that leads to the executive branch changing anything. again, unless there is broader involvement by congress, there's a serious question about whether oversight is adequate.

215 is a very different animal. there you do not have a federal judge issuing particular surveillance orders. they can make these directions, give orders to serviced providers directly. the only role of the fisa is to eview the minimization and targeting procedures, give the ok, and then up to a year, the dni issues orders directed to companies. the second oversight mechanism there, two, is congressional oversight in the same points i made earlier applied. >> that's very helpful. i think we all want to talk about this.

i'll try to be brief, but -- >> yes, very brief. two points. one about the court oversight here. it's important to remember this is not an adversarial process. know when is representing the interest of the people whose records are collected. it is just the government before secret court. these are programmatic orders. they don't have names or accounts on them. the court is in making individualized decisions about who is going to be spied upon. that is left to the administration to decide later. both under section 215, the domestic phone collection program and the fisa amendments act. this is not a law that has been litigated, decided by public court. we really do not know what they're doing. we have statements from members of congress confirming there are court opinions interpreting our rights from the fourth amendment about what the government is

allowed to collect and how they are allowed to use it and that is untenable because the decisions have to be brought out into the light. i will end with that second point of congress's role. so far congress has allowed the intelligence committees to do secret oversight of secret programs allowed under secret court orders and led to the collection of every american's phone calls. this cannot continue. we need to pull this information out into the public sphere so the rank-and-file members can understand what they authorized, so the applicant understand how the government spies on them, and they can make decisions about how these programs should continue. secret surveillance has not been working and through the information leaked for the last couple of weeks, it is clear that some of this information has unnecessarily been kept secret and your bosses need to make strong decisions about what is appropriate.

>> thank you, michelle. julian? >> there is a great book called "eyes on spies." it sums up the conclusions of most of the academic literature looking at congressional oversight of intelligence. it's pretty feeble. members of the intelligence committee continually assure us that congressional oversight is rigorous and effective, but that is not a conclusion many other observers have arrived at. with respect to court orders, the way the statutes are framed, very often the court has limited discretion to reject orders that are formally correct. that is if the application has certain formal elements and certifications, the word has pretty limited discretion in denying that order and more generally, it comes up pretty

regularly in regulatory aps. the court will often get captured by regulatory industry and the regulation will become not a way of checking the industry but in forming its nterest. i there's a lot of that to suggest something similar may have happened with the fisa court which is meeting in secret with one side continuously, and one tidbit of evidence -- we know initially the congress and the metadata surveillance we've seen disclosed in the orders was done according to residential directive without court order. at you ask him a white is the court going to do this and this is legal under the -- you ask him why is this court going to do this and this is legal under the patriot act? why didn't he do that from the beginning? i think no one thought initially be patriot act could authorize

this kind of action as broad as t was. once it was under way, the court was able to be brought around into signing off on it even though no one initially imagined it was him thing that was in their power to authorize. >> alan? >> quickly, i would say transparency will be a key. but for congress and the ublic. the role of secrecy here -- a peculiar feature of the statutory operators were talking about, the recipients of orders are not permitted to even disclose they have received the orders. that is an unusual revision -- provision in our framework and it has made it very hard for people to talk about even the number in aggregate of orders being received. there is a lot in terms of the

addition to problems about how the court operates, just understanding the sheer number of these and how the statutes are being used. second, there's a lot of ambiguity about how you interpret this. mike talked about the issues of what is relevant, what is an investigation. it is often understood that companies receiving minas orders will enter into an -- receiving these orders will enter into a negotiation about orders they have received. there have been a few public cases of this. google did this in 2006. they decided to do two months of search data. it just goes to show, there's a lot of ambiguity about how the statutes are supposed to operate and it shouldn't rely on negotiation with private actors from the government. there should be a lot more clarity. the low hanging fruit is a lot

more transparency about how the orders are working and even how many orders would help a lot. >> thanks, alan. i will take my own objective to raise a few more elements. i completely concur on the role of the house and senate intelligence committees. i do not think this is what frank church envisioned when he worked on intelligence reform. they have the authority to oversee the civil liberties issues and i want to highlight that because that is something that is not addressed. i want to go to the deputy attorney general's comments in front of the house intelligence committee earlier this week when you said there was lots of internal justice oversight, internal oversight within the department of justice. the oversight body within the department of justice is the national security division and the national security division

has many strong capable lawyers but the concept of having an objective review of whether it is necessary, i find to be a weak link and i do not know there could be objective oversight. and i also know the department of justice as a civil liberties officer in that role has been vacant since august. it was notable the deputy attorney general did not note the privacy and civil liberties officer was part of the review, because the obvious question is, well, who is the privacy and civil liberties officer? i would just have those questions about the oversight. now, we will turn to the business records orders. the president defended that approach by saying "nobody is listening to your calls and the information elected is only metadata. the information about the calls placed, the duration of calls, and so on."

does this come for you, anelist? >> your records are incredibly sensitive. it is not the content of the communication. that is no comfort. the government would not want them so bad, right, if they did not have incredibly rich, telling data in them. if you look at a phone record, and you will know quite a lot about who you associate with, where you go. perhaps you are calling a cancer doctor or a lawyer who specializes in divorce you can learn a lot. whether a congressperson is calling his scheduler at 3:00 in the afternoon or 3:00 in the morning, right? it is the content. the administration points back

to old case law developed in the 1970's, saying because they are records there is no fourth amendment protection. i think a lot of us inc. when this is -- a lot of us think when this is revisited that decision will come down differently. the way we live our lives is very different. if you participate in modern society doing everyday things, these records reflect a lot about your life and they need to receive heightened rejection. -- protection. we can't dismiss this as a very minor intrusion. >> fellow panelists weigh in yucca -- weigh in? >> twitter said the only time it makes sense to say "just metadata" is that a star trek onvention. >> why i agree with a lot of the points, i am comforted that it does not involve content.

i think there's a difference between the government knowing what numbers i call or have been called i and the content of those communications. i think there is a real difference. even though you can make determinations about a person based on whom he or she is calling. the greater comfort comes from the rules regarding how the government uses the information. again that goes back to the internal procedures. if there are in fact rigorous procedures in place that the government will not look at the u.s. person, me or you, unless there is reason to believe you are somehow engaged in clandestine intelligence activities, i.e. spying, or terrorism, and they do have that suspicion and they need to get a court order, then i don't have a problem with that. when you think long-term about

how much destructive power an individual can have now and is going to have even more off at -- even more off as technology advances, there is got to be a way to keep track of individuals better than we do now. it's a scary thought and that but no one really wants to confront, but it's an issue that's going to keep coming up nd keep coming up. and in the worst case scenario, when an individual brings a suitcase nuke onto wall street and detonates it, the question is going to be, the government had this technical capability to keep track of people, but didn't use it? why? that will be the scandal. it's always a better idea to examine these issues and come up with a democratically agreed to set up procedures now rather than after an incident when the situation will be far worse from the civil liberties perspective.

>> i will just add really quickly, first i think many people would agree there is a difference appropriately between the content of information's and other data about conversation. we'd need to recognize there is a big of trend here. we create more and more of a set of data. there's more happening in the section of big data, creation of more and more data about us. i think there needs to be a conversation about data about us at scale. it comes back to the discussion about transparency. there are questions not only about targeting, but also how long is this information kept? how do we protect against mission creep? there's a lot of good work about the accountability of the system, a lot of technical work but it's very hard to know without having more transparency about how the systems actually operate.

>> just to end this portion of the conversation, my reaction to that is the collection first onset of this metadata is -- it is probably on trend to say "well, it may be useful someday." i may buy size 2 suits because someday i may be size 2, but i ay never be. the court records to obtain this order was not tangible -- i find that to be a stretch of a legal argument. so, with that said, we will turn to a slightly different points. let's talk about the justification. those nuclear bombs down on wall street.

general alexander stated 50 terrorist events were stopped due to these programs. does that factor into your ssessment? and what about the smaller nature of 20 terrorist events, with no specifics on the business records? julian? >> a very brief coda to that last discussion. we are talking about metadata -- i'm not sure to what extent that continues. the distinction between content and metadata is not as sharp when you're talking about what site he person is visiting. that's effectively a description of the content they are accessing. in terms of the terrorist events that have been disrupted, a little background here. one of the very first inspector general reports on section 215 said the first use of 215, after

being unused for several years, was essentially because the rector says, the congress will e reviewing our use of215. we better stop -- we better start using it so we have something to show for it. i don't think that is nefarious, but there is perhaps motivated reasoning in play, because the desire not to use authority, whether or not it will be used in the future -- i'm not saying the fbi should be seen in that light. as we look at the specific cases described in hearings earlier this week, i think what we see is what at first it seems like fairly dramatic claims -- dozens of terror plots being foiled -- looks a lot lester maddox under closer scrutiny.

if you separate out 702 from 215, actually 40 of these terror of vents, whatever that is, were overseas, so those may have involved prism or half may have involved prism in some significant way and you have 10 or 12 that are domestic. what are those cases? finding someone who had been donating money to al-shabaab, the ethiopian terror group. it is not clear that that is a it is not clear why the same thing could not have been achieved using

traditional tools. zazi found through an e-mail address.already being monitored, what ever use of 215 was used later then. not clear why a more targeted use of that would not have been possible. there is another case involving the supposed lot bomb of the new york stock exchange. was it a serious plot? the director of the fbi said, the jury thought it was serious because they were all convicted. it turns out that there was no jury trial. the people were convicted of the essential support of a terrorist organization. again, money. the new york exchange part of it seems to be that the u.s. person scoped out several terrorist targets. it appears to have been abandoned. the u.s. attorney who works that case said there was no specific lot. -- plot. i think we should treat with

skepticism if these are the showpiece cases they are bringing up to justify the old collection of all americans phone and possibly internet records, it is not clear that the justification that passes that cost-benefit test. if you have general warrants to search any suspected place, yes, it turns out when you are investigating crimes, the thing that you use to help solve those crimes would be the general warrants. if we have a system where warrants are based on probable cause, that is what you will look back and see being useful in solving crimes. the question is, what are the instances in which only this broad authority and not traditional and more targeted authorities will do the job? there are types of analysis where you need the entire body of records to do fingerprinting of various kinds or pattern

analysis. but these are not really justifications of these programs. their justifications of the ideas that phone records should sometimes be obtained which no one has contested. >> other colleagues want to talk about that? >> i fully agree with julian that the cases are not really what they are made out to be. in spite of what general alexander characterized the numbers, when you look at testimony, really only one case but they talk about where 215 collection was instrumental, and that was the case of the fellow who gave i think $8,500 to al- shabaab. other cases, yes, 215 was relevant, but there's no indication it was instrumental or thwarted the terrorist attack. i think that's important to really probe. i think that something congress and

intelligence committees should really probe. what role did these programs play? one point about prism, the collection these programs engage in are these sorts of programs that nsa could do outside the united states with no court that is itsoever. raison d'être. collection of information outside of the united states. the reason that fisa was amended to section 702 was today so many international communications passed through the united states because of the way the internet is designed. for nsa to collect that information, it's much easier for them to do it here in the u.s. by basically wiretapping the major providers and the united states and the backbone providers in the united states rather than going abroad and trying to monitor everything there. when you think about their

authority,, they are not really being authorized to collect anything more than they used to collect. they are just being authorized to do it within the united states. that is sort of the whole point. for me, that makes it less problematic if you look at it andm the 12,000 foot level. so i think it's just good to keep that in mind. >> that's a very good point, mike. michelle? >> i agree with everything julian said. just to highlight you are being presented with a false choice. the question is, do you want to spy on terrorists or don't you? that's not the question. the question is, are you going to spy on the rest of us in the meantime just in case? that is not good police work. it violates the fourth amendment. just remember, over the last 14 years, you have the patriots -- the patriot act, the creation of

the apartment of homeland security -- >> hey! >> [laughter] isn't there intelligence reform? >> then you have intelligence reform, the creation of homeland security again, the rewrite of the fisa act. we are talking one level program on one tiny piece of continual expansion of mini programs through mini agencies. all of those tools are still available even if you stop spying on american phone records. to not think of this as not spying or spying, but whether you will include americans. >> thanks, michele. we will end up with an overview. one of the issues is to address the growth or development of the internet.

so, panelist's, how do you think the disclosure of two programs will affect the companies and will it impact of the internet economy overall? again i will use a little discretion and say i have three points i want to highlight. having gone to 20 eu member states to talk about government information carrying in my role as the u.s. department of homeland security privacy officer, and to say, don't worry, this was only used 96 times in 2010 -- i'm going to tell you. the relationship with the european union and the european commission are likely irreparably damaged. i used to say, no, believe me. don't worry. it will be fine. they would say, we don't believe you. you lie to us about guantanamo. you lie to us about rendition. now they have a third one in there. i also think that the concept of government and transparency has

been harmed and particularly the nine named companies and at the same time the other elements, the other companies operating in this space, will have a cloud over their heads, saying, well, are you participating in this? what is the access? the point on transparency is going to have to be a thing we development. to affect the internet economy, there is something in the privacy act called the ick factor. you can't define it, but people say "ick!" i think that will affect the government use of this data. alan? >> i think it's more than just the nine companies but the real impact on the broader internet

communications economy. i think that we know people do not want to use services that they don't trust them. the last two weeks have not been good for trust of major u.s. and internet medications companies, which is partly why you are hearing so much about why they are trying to, in their eyes, protect user privacy. you know, the director talked about this in his testimony from a different point of view. he said the disclosure will drive people away on the u.s. services and that is a damaging thing. i would say that is a damaging thing, but it is the existence of the services and the lack of transparency and oversight that is going to drive people away. we know people have choices out there. this will embolden the competitors, the services that are abroad, it will drive people

especially if we do not address what the rules are -- it will drive people to use other tools. it will drive people to send their traffic other places than the united states. it will drive people to using creation tools to protect their information so they cannot be surveilled. that will be damaging to industry, of course. but ultimately i would argue it is damaging to our ability to conduct the kind of surveillance that is really important. oversight and transparency are good for our ability ultimately to do this kind of surveillance, to give law enforcement the kind of tools we want them to have. i would say it is a false choice. we want our government to have the tools at its disposal, but we want them to be careful tools and we can do that with good rules and good tools, you have to be able to talk. you have to have a real conversation about how are the

capabilities being used? are they being built in such a way that they will protect privacy over time? i think it's oversight and transparency is key to that conversation. >> thank you, alan. michelle? >> i guess this is hopefully just the beginning of the disclosure process that will continue. and release more information about what information the government is collecting and being used. there's still a lot of questions left that we hope you and your bosses will pursue so you can make informed decisions about the value of these tools. this information will continue to be created by these companies. we will continue to use it. right now we do not have any option about whether we share that information with the government, and really the

answer is going to lie with you as congress. it's incredibly clear that the administration will continue these are brands without any limitation. that the court will sign off on them. and if there is going to be more oversight or judicious use of them, it's going to have to come from the direction of you guys. >> thanks. julian. >> the fact that such an enormous percentage of global telecommunications that flows through the united states is not a fact of nature. it is a contingent fact that will main true until other countries decide that the cheapest path for a packet is too costly. the fact that we're having this domestic debate in these terms, where the assurances we are given our don't worry, we have these limits and minimization procedures, which most of you cannot look at them, even on the

guardian side, but there are some loopholes. we are sure that we have all of these procedures cared only people outside the u.s. who can be and is firmly spied on. that does not play as well overseas, perhaps, as it does in the united states. >> it is no fun if everybody agreed, so i will disagree. >> thank you, mike. >> just for the sake of being devils advocate. in terms of these programs, sorted to our foreign relations and trust, a ghost through a few categories and say i do not think the harm is going to be that great except for one category. the europeans are going to complain. they always complain. but note that the complaints are presently coming from eu officials in brussels. they're not coming from the presidents or prime ministers of member states. why? because they benefit tremendously from these programs. they get intelligence from us about terror plots in their countries. if you read the articles about

the president meeting with angela merkel, she had to make a sour face about these things, but she acknowledged that they get tremendous assistance. so i do not think for all of this there is going to be much lasting effect on our relations with the europeans, just that there were not with previous revelations of u.s. intelligence programs. with regard to the companies, i do not think there will be lasting damage. even short-term damage to these companies. how may people do you think stopped using gmail or yahoo! or any of the other services that were listed as being recipients of demand for information under 702? very few. if you want to protect your privacy, you can still use those while using other software, encryption software and other things to protect your confidential communications if you want. there is really very little choice. the other aspect is, we entrust our most intimate details to google, yahoo!, facebook, and that information is mined so we can be served advertisements.

it is shared with companies we have no idea about. we trust those monies to deal with that information, so i do not see a huge den munition of trust because government pursuant to statute is getting that information for counterterrorism and counterintelligence. damage to our intelligence capabilities, which is what the government officials have been saying. yes, i think there is damaging the short-term now that the details of these programs have been revealed. i do not think there will be great damage long-term because again, our adversaries have to communicate. they may spend 90% of their medications, they may take efforts to avoid surveillance. 10% of the time they will slip up for the sake of convenience or they will just forget. this is why wiretaps are still useful against organized crime. they know they'll are being watched and investigated, but they will still make that the phone call, which becomes crucial to the government's case. so few people in the legislative

branch really understand that these programs exist, and even fewer still know the details of these things. that is the problem because that means the executive branch is effectively running the show with very little real oversight. and that is exacerbated by the fact that the president determines what is classified. and then congress has to open a or think that has to obey those rules about what is classified, what could be shared, and things like that. i think that is an area where congress can really push back. ultimately, congress has the power. if congress is not think it is getting enough information, it is not know what the executive branch is doing, it can cut off funding. and then they will give more information all of a sudden. so i think if congress wants to push back, that is ultimately what makes congress the most powerful branch.

the question is whether it wants to exert a power or not. >> mike, thank you so much. and thank you for playing the devils advocate role. i want to thank the panel is for a lively demonstration. i want to leave you with a question -- just because the information is out there, does that mean the government showed or have a right to access it? it is a question we will all have to struggle with. i will go back to roger to close at our luncheon. >> thank you very much. for those of you viewing us on c-span and those of you in the conference room, thank you so much for joining us in this program of the congressional internet caucus advisory committee. as i said earlier, if you would like to learn more about the activities of the congressional internet caucus, the visor he committee, or sponsor the internet education foundation, please join us at neted.org. you can learn more about the

programs that you've seen today. on behalf of the caucus advisory committee and the education foundation, please join me in thanking maryellen and our panelists. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> now on c-span, panels and speaker from the wall street journal annual conference here in washington. first we will look at cybersecurity for u.s. as mrs.. allying.ill hear from then we will hear a discussion of u.s. production and supplies. in a lot of ways, this is a challenging time for people who are conservatives. we have not only a democratic

president, but a quite liberal necrotic president. who has been reelected after putting in place some ideas and programs that i think are very wrongheaded. the public at a chance to think about that and they did reelect him. it is a challenging time. it's also an exciting time if what you're trying to do is -- i say i tried to do and many others are trying to do -- modernize the system, bring it in-line line with the challenges that the country aces now to help conservatives in the figure out how to confront the challenges of the 21st-century first century. neither side has done a very good job of that. there's a lot of opportunity for thinking about what americans in the 21st century need to change about the way they govern themselves to get back to economic growth, to prosperity, to a cultural revival that we need. it's challenging, but exciting. >> more with national affairs

on sundayl levin at 8:00 on q&a. >> next, a discussion of cybersecurity from the wall street journal cfo annual network conference. this is about 40 minutes. >> this afternoon, we are joined michael daniel and richard. richard is with mandy and and michael is with -- the white house, side -- kind of a cyber coordinator, cyber czar in the white house advancing policy. we're going to talk about the i'm pretty much the mind of every ceo we talked to that comes through the journal. inevitably the conversation returns to cybersecurity.

up until now we have heard extraordinary language. the administration has said this is the largest left of intellectual property in the history of mankind of that has been going on for the last couple of years. the pentagon has a couple countries as being propagators .f this, china particularly 9:00 in the morning until 5:00 in the afternoon shift accessing government computers and military contractors. there was an extraordinary report earlier this year that identified china, the pla, right down to a building outside of shanghai, i believe. where this work was being done. we know it is a bad problem. have these great concerns. today we're going to talk a little bit about some of the solutions. as soon as i get my ipad back, i'm going to call -- asked a

couple of audience response questions about how much you believe you have already been hacked. since i'm waiting for that, why don't we just start? , you worked on the china report. your company is in the is this of helping the private sector, like companies represented in this room, mitigate these problems once they start. what question should cfo's, a lot of whom have the cio reporting to them, the chief information officer, what questions should they be asking these days about their company nd hacking gecko -- hacking? click there are three questions i recommend you ask your cio or head of security. the first is what is the

classification for all digital incidents in the last quarter, the last year? you want a number. trending over time is ideal, but any number to start with. secondly, what is the amount of time from the time that event occurred to win someone dealt with it? all thosee of incidents. the third question you want to ask is, is our company a member of something called the -- first. first.org is the website. for example, you might have several intrusions per year. the average containment time, if you want to use that term, is days or hours. and we are a member of first. thumbs up. you're doing very well. more likely you will find out

you do not know what the count is, you do not know how to quickly you're dealing with those problems, and to not a member of that organization. there are ways to get there. i had a discussion with general electric in 2007. the answers were don't know, don't know. all right. the last report we created showed the average time for that second question was 240 days. now, eight months of having an injured or do anything they --t before anyone moves that's one of those felt the groups. we are not talking of garden righty kid in the basement. we are talking an advanced intruder. the time, you are being told by the fbi or an outside agency. our cioorked at ge,

gave us a one-hour mandate. he said, any computer in the company, within one hour you up to find the intrusion and contain it. that is the goal to shoot for. if you can do it in one hour, it takes a very elite team to execute their mission to steal your data within that window. that? you achieve >> yes, but it's a nine to 12 months of loss of investment. >> was that a computer anywhere in the world? >> yes. >> china, india, were ever? >> yes. >> give us a sense of that. how many hours, hamid people? >> we started out in 2007 the literal army of one. i was the first person to be assigned this problem. we had 13 people. -- a c per year.

>> what you mean? >> her employee. >> that does not;. >> when you're charging $.25 per seat for antivirus, it's ready significant. -- it's pretty significant. >> oh, i see. is that something that could be duplicated at public dump in these -- you canbsolutely duplicate it. this is not a problem you solved by buying some kind of vendor products. i'm a vendor. if someone tries to sell you a shiny new box and say, just put this on your network and you'll be fine, you will have the same problem you had earlier. >> a 24-hour monitoring, and they would call with some suspicion -- >> it's even more than that. it was not sitting waiting for calls. you're out there looking for those guys.

that is the key. you cannot sit behind your wall and poke your head over and hope no one is coming over. you have to be looking. we coined the term "hunting" for the atmosphere -- for the adversary. do not assume you are clean. the chances are he's already there. it you have to be there looking for him. the more you do, the better you get, the faster you get overtime. >> you have polling questions and it is right there on your ipad. you can answer right there on your ipad. and there are techs in the room who are happy to tell you. how many of you have lost proprietary information to hackers? yes, no, don't know. has anyone else, any other large company duplicated this general electric model of a one-hour response to an intrusion?

would say -- i don't know specifics around to be one hour, although the idea of aggressive on the network is widespread defense industrial base and also the financial sector. and there are elements of other sectors too about this constant contact with the adversary over the last several years you are adopting that model. as you it quite a bit in the energy sector as well. cracks absolutely. -- >> absolutely. so by hunting, there are certain types of code you look for or ip addresses to look for? yes. artifacts, elements of the adversary you can look or and when you find it, you say he has been year or has been here. now we need to kick him out. .> ok >> the other question is we always recommend to the company, do you have a mitigation plan

if the bad guys do something, to to steal your data, but do something to your data, do you have a plan? have you tested it? kind of responses would you get? >> it's all over the map. some companies have good plans they have tested. they probably had something bad happened to them in the past. others have no idea. example.udi >> that was a distrusted attack on their system where they wiped the master boot records off about 30,000 hard drives. >> what was their backup plan? much of one.t have i think the open source reporting lately showed they operated, limps along, maintained their businesses to buy tapering facts until they could reconstitute by literally rebuilding their network by

purchasing new machines. probably not the way you want to go about it. >> 42% of you have lost information to hackers. 27% say you have not, and 31% say don't know. if you were to look at the stats, what would you make of -- 27% and that 31%. >> those of you saying no need to get with your i.t. and security staff. guessing who is in this room, not everyone in the room is necessarily a target of espionage. but then again, knowing who is in the room, i'm guessing that many of you are. if you do anything interesting and you have data that reflects what you do, you're a target. if you're doing a negotiation in